Ham Salad Spread

I made some ham salad spread recently for the first time ever. Now, I have never eaten ham salad spread to know what it should taste like, but I think I did OK.

I am posting a link to a recipe that is almost identical to how I made mine, other than celery, which I didn't have, but I didn't have as much ham as the recipe calls for, so I didn't use as much of the other ingredients as they call for either.

Mine is obviously not as "pretty" as the other one, but I wasn't making it to share. It matters more that I get the mix right - then I can worry about aesthetics.

I did make one mistake, though. I added salt and pepper like I would have done in my tuna fish salad, forgetting that ham tends to be salty. I had to figure out a way to fix it, so I added a couple Sweet n Low packets to the salad and it brought it back up to where it had been before I put the salt in. I'm sure it will taste better the next time when I remember to NOT put salt in it, but it worked out.

I only used one hard boiled egg and some sweet pickle relish along with the chopped up ham and the mayonnaise. I did add a little mustard, but I think I might leave that out as well the next time. I can eat the salad with it, but there is a distinct bite that I'm not overly fond of. I also added a bit of onion powder. Some recipes called for diced onions and I can't stand raw onions, but onion powder isn't so bad. I also might leave that out next time, but the mustard whad more of a yuck factor for me than the onion powder did.

Anyway, here is the link to the almost identical recipe: allrecipes.com/recipe/ham-salad-spread-2/.

Photo credits - the first one is from the recipe and was posted to the recipe by SugarPlum♥ of Acworth, Georgia. (http://allrecipes.com/Cook/SugarPlum9829/Profile.aspx)

The second photo is one I just took of MY ham salad. I don't think they look all that much different, do you? Other than the lighting is obviously different.

Chicken Soup (Making Silk Out of the Proverbial Sow's Ear) - Dinner Disasters and Redemption

I had made breaded pork chops with gravy and fried potatoes. Unfortunately, the potatoes were a complete disaster because they were dehydrated and I had REhydrated them before frying. Now, in my defense, I have done this with shredded potatoes, but I'd never tried it with sliced potatoes. I learned my lesson.

Because of the potato disaster, I decided to throw together a quick mix of pasta and tomatoes, which we've had before and enjoyed for years. But, the only pasta I had on hand was whole wheat bowties and it just didn't turn out right. The texture of the pasta just didn't fit with the concept we'd grown accustomed to, so the next night I added a can of spaghetti sauce to the mix hoping that something tolerable would result. (The pantry was needing to be restocked, so I was struggling to save this from the garbage.)

While the pasta WAS a tad more acceptable, there were still only two of us who ate it. I was still left with over a quart of pasta with tomatoes and sauce. What to do?

Well, I decided that chicken soup was the way to go (I hoped). I had leftover corn from disaster dinner night and I had carrot coins in the freezer along with some lima beans. I had plenty of chicken, so I decided to make broth and then add the pasta, corn and carrots for a (hopefully) hearty (and tastier) soup than the original meal turned out. [To be fair, the pork chops were excellent. Far more tender and moist than pork chops usually are. I'll do them again for sure.]

After making something else for a couple of days, I decided enough was enough. MAKE THE SOUP ALREADY!!!! So, I did.

It turned out terrific!! Of course, I seemed to be the only one who thought so since my son and his girlfriend wouldn't even try it. My granddaughter had a small amount, but refused to eat the vegetables. I wasn't too worried about that since, other than fiber, all their goodness was contained in the broth.

Here's what I did. I had a partial chicken breast leftover from some chicken and rice I had made. I put it in the pot with two cups of chicken broth and three cups of water plus chicken bouillon cubes and leftover corn from the pork chop fiasco. After that had all cooked for a while, I added frozen sliced carrots, frozen green beans and frozen baby lima beans. When that all cooked for a while longer, I added a pint of the disastrous bowtie pasta mix (with tomatoes and sauce). After tasting, I added two teaspoons of dehydrated minced onions, a teaspoon and a half of salt and another bouillon cube. I also took the chicken breast out and pulled all the meat off the bones, shredded it and reintroduced it to the pot.

I was amazed at how good it tasted! I should have waited longer to eat some since the vegetables were still a little on the crunchy side (not bad, but not how I like them), but the flavor was perfect and I was hungry !

So, it looks like my first effort at making chicken soup was successful. And, yes, it really DID take me this long to make chicken soup. I've made vegetable soup many times, but I have never ever tried to make chicken soup.

What was wrong with me???

Previously published on Yahoo! Contributor Network.
Photo credit - I, BrokenSphere [GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC-BY-SA-2.5-2.0-1.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5-2.0-1.0)], via Wikimedia Commons